‘All the Empty Rooms’, a Netflix short documentary about victims of school shootings in the US, releases trailer to over half a million views

By Natalia Albin Legorreta

Netflix

Directed by Joshua Seftel (Oscar-nominated for his 2022 short doc Stranger at the Gate), All the Empty Rooms follows CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp over a seven-year period as they document the bedrooms of children killed in US school shootings. The trailer, released only five days ago, has already surpassed 600k views.

The short premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August, where it became the first film at the festival to secure distribution through a deal with Netflix. Since then, it has screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and picked up awards at SCAD Savannah Film Festival, Santa Fe International Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival and others.

Netflix

“For many, gun violence and school shootings live only in statistics and headlines. This film takes us, in a very gentle way, into the intimate bottomless loss at the center of all of these preventable tragedies,” Adam McKay, executive producer of the short film, told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Seftel began the project after a phone call from Hartman, who told him he was looking to create a news story on the subject and wondered whether it might work as a documentary. Seftel said yes. Within weeks, they were in production.

The documentary will premiere on Netflix on December 1. You can watch the trailer below.